


the fire that breaks from thee (a billion times told lovelier)

by Lord Vitya (ProtoDan)



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics), Detective Comics (Comics)
Genre: (basically everyone’s here but I love you too much to tag literally everyone), Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Fluff, Jean-Paul is a gay mess, M/M, batfam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 10:44:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18071936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProtoDan/pseuds/Lord%20Vitya
Summary: From a Tumblr soulmate AU prompt:“The one where you only see color once you meet your soulmate.”





	the fire that breaks from thee (a billion times told lovelier)

Jean-Paul has never known color.

He doesn't consider this any sort of deficiency, or that he might be somehow missing something. It's impossible to miss what was never there, after all. The world is simply varying shades of grey, of black, of white. That is the simple reality of it. True, there were words he had no meaning for in books and in scriptures—blood has never been _red_ , only a trickling black; the sky is only ever a faded grey; blades of grass are merely shards of the same. There is something else, then, but it is not something he can know. 

Azrael is not meant to see such things, he thinks. It would be a distraction from his calling, from his purpose. So when he sees his reflection in a window, or a pool of water, he sees only a washed-out grey face, cold white eyes. When he looks up into the fractured gleam of a chapel's mosaic windows, he can only see the light. It is how he is meant to be.

 

This doesn't change after he is freed from the Order of Saint Dumas. Why would it? To assume it would is... senseless. Unreasonable. To hope for it is nothing short of foolish. 

Not that he would—not that he did. 

Anyway, he doesn't mind. Gotham is, perhaps, more difficult to navigate than Gnosis or Santa Prisca when every street and every building looks identical in its austerity, but that is simply Jean-Paul's burden to bear. 

He doesn't mind.

 

He hears, from listening in on conversations that aren't quite hushed enough, that there are people who can see something other than a wash of black and grey. Two women sitting on a bench together, gazing wonderingly into each other's eyes and marveling at all the color they can suddenly see within. A young man in a library, saying words like  _soulmate_  in dreamlike tones. 

The knowledge twists inside him, but he will not allow himself to resent anyone blessed with the colors he will never know.

 

It doesn't change.

 

It won't change.

 

Until the day it does.

 

Azrael's mask lifts from Jean-Paul's face as he descends the stairs to the Cave. He shakes his hair out, pushing a gauntleted hand through it to untangle it. The air is cool on his face, growing cooler as he descends, and then abruptly warmer as he nears the Cave itself—and the heating systems Batman has set up to keep himself and his wards from freezing down here. He tucks his helmet in the crook of his arm as he passes the tyrannosaur, upon which Damian appears to have made himself quite comfortable. Down on the ground below him, there sleeps a truly enormous dog, head rested peacefully on its paws.

It's strange to be invited down here, to the Bat family's most closely-guarded sanctum. Looking around the Cave, no one seems to even be particularly bothered by his walking down here. Tim even gives a small wave before returning his attention to one of the main computer consoles, though the young woman sitting next to him is too engrossed in her work to do the same. Jason, situated with his boots propped up on the circular meeting table, seems more inclined to pay attention to a plate of tiny sandwiches he's appropriated than to Jean-Paul. 

Not that Jean-Paul minds overmuch. That no one is paying him much heed is, in the end, almost a sign of trust. After everything he did to these people—that, in and of itself, is a minor miracle.

A few... key members are nowhere to be found. Jean-Paul assumes he has simply arrived early, and tries his best not to fidget as he sits down. Silently, Jason extends a single sandwich. For lack of anything better to do, Jean-Paul reasons he may as well. (It tastes like nothing Jean-Paul has ever had, but that's hardly surprising.)

Slowly, others trickle in. Jean-Paul knows a handful of names and faces, mostly because Harper likes to show off pictures during downtime at the clinic. Cassandra and Stephanie, who sit together some seats away from Jason and Jean-Paul. Kate, who had been there when Jean-Paul was invited here, and who he nearly doesn't recognize without her cowl and wig. A young man, a bit taller and darker-skinned than Damian, who nods at Jean-Paul before pulling up a chair near Tim, Barbara, and the computer. 

"No Grayson?" says Damian.

Kate looks up, her expression simultaneously exasperated and resigned. "This is Gotham business," she says. "And please get down on the ground, Damian. I'm going to get a crick in my neck if you stay up there much longer."

Damian makes a sound of vague disgust, but the _thump_ of boots on stone follows shortly after. He perches himself on the seat on Jason's other side, knees tucked under his chin. 

Tim turns in his chair, an arm looped over the back. "Bruce should be—" 

"Present," intones a low, distorted voice. Jean-Paul looks over his shoulder towards the Cave's entrance. Sure enough, Batman has... manifested at the bottom of the stairs, as if he were an apparition, the inky shadow of his cape pooling at his feet. "Just waiting on one more."

Batman seats himself at Kate's right side before peeling off his cowl. He regards Jean-Paul silently for a moment before inclining his head in greeting. "Duke, Tim, Barbara—come get a spot at the table. I want everyone involved in this as much as possible."

Three more seats fill up. No one but Jason sits directly next to Jean-Paul. 

"So, I don't want to be rude or anything," says Duke, pulling his jacket tighter around himself, "but who're you?"

Jean-Paul opens his mouth to reply, but Bruce holds up a hand to silence him. "I'll introduce our guest when everyone's here," Bruce says, not unkindly. "You won't have to wait long, don't worry."

Jason yawns. "Uh-huh. Most of us have been here for ages already," he says, pushing the now empty plate away from the edge of the table. He folds his hands behind his head, closes his eyes, and leans far back enough in his seat to be nearly lying down. "How many more centuries is it gonna be, Bruce?"

Bruce pushes a sigh through his nose. "Not long. He told me there was something he needed to finish up before he could come here."

This time, Kate is the one to scoff, but she doesn't offer any further illuminating commentary. Instead, she draws a phone out of her pocket and, judging by the fairly constant motion of her thumb, starts scrolling absently without really reading much.

Jean-Paul turns Azrael's mask over in his lap, studying the angles of it, the black emptiness of its eye holes. It's easier than looking too long in the faces of everyone else here. He knows, consciously, that it was only ever Tim, Jason, and Dick that he had committed outright violence against, but even that feels an act of violence against the family as a whole. He doesn't know why they would allow him here after that.

He doesn't look up again until he hears another unfamiliar voice from above. 

"Hey, sorry to keep everybody waiting." The voice is friendly, even behind whatever distortion is masking it. As much as he wants to, Jean-Paul doesn't turn around to look. He's here for the others to observe and make judgement upon him, not the other way around. "Did I miss anything fun?"

"Todd is falling asleep," says Damian, kicking the back of Jason's chair. 

Jason just cracks an eye open to glare. "I wasn't actually asleep, you little—"

"We were just waiting for you," Kate says coolly. She puts her phone face-down on the table, nodding towards the empty seat next to Jean-Paul. "By all means."

"Thanks," the newcomer says with a snort.

Jean-Paul hears a series of faint clicks, and out of the corner of his eye, sees a pair of gauntleted hands gently place a helmet on the table. It looks metal, as dark as a starless night, and at the peak of the crown rest twin bat-like ears. The chair beside him scrapes against the floor, and as the newcomer sits down, he finally indulges his curiosity and glances over.

At first, he only registers the usual kinds of features he can make out: short-shaven hair, a wide grin, the shadow of stubble. And then—

Jean-Paul stares, transfixed, as black and grey give way to—to what he has no words for, has never _needed_ words for until this very moment. To...  to revelation, to warmth, to the dark-but-not-grey-or-black of smiling eyes, ringed by something lighter, a color—a _color—_ like if one could see the gentle heat of the morning sun. To the deep, yet almost iridescent richness of his dark skin. 

The newcomer's smile slowly fades, his eyes beginning to widen. (His eyes are _beautiful._ Jean-Paul had never known anything could even be so beautiful. He thinks he understands, now, the human race’s need for poetry.)

Bruce's voice breaks the silence. "Well, since we're all here," he says, "why don't I introduce everyone."

Jean-Paul pays him no heed, too mesmerized as the color spreads from the newcomer's face to his armor (even in the black metal, there is color; even in the white light of the bat-sigil, there are other faint hues to behold), to everything around him. How could anyone bear to look at anyone or anything else? 

“Everyone, this is Jean-Paul Valley, callsign Azrael. Jean-Paul, this—Jean-Paul?”

"Yes," he says, distractedly. 

"Is something wrong?" Bruce asks. 

Jean-Paul finally tears his eyes away. Bruce barely looks much different, save for the blend of pale tones across his face, which Jean-Paul can actually make out now. "No," he says. "Nothing." 

Why would there be? Nothing feels wrong at all. It's as though by simply walking into this room, this man has slotted every missing piece of Jean-Paul's spirit right into place, leaving a blanket of calm over him. For the first time in his life, Jean-Paul feels as though he belongs somewhere. This man, and his miraculous canvas of color, feels like— _home._

Kate glances between Jean-Paul and the newcomer, something like understanding beginning to dawn on her face. "Jean-Paul, this is Luke Fox," she says, sounding strangely tired. "Luke, meet Jean-Paul."

Luke. Jean-Paul turns back again to see that smile slowly returning, the shadows of dimples forming under Luke's stubble. Luke extends a hand. Jean-Paul stares dumbly, first at it, and then at his own (he'd gone so, so long without truly _seeing_ the armor he wore, heavens) before he takes it. Luke's grip is firm, but Jean-Paul is still too enraptured by the color of his eyes to think much on it.

And then Luke utters three words that make Jean-Paul's chest tighten and fill with blinding light and heat all at once.

"You too, huh?"

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem The Windhover. 
> 
> Thanks to KathrynShadow for looking this over, and thanks to you for reading! I welcome comments here and, if you’re so inclined, over on my blog @ gayazrael! ❤️


End file.
